157 © Institute for Research in Social Communication, Slovak Academy of Sciences SUPERVISION: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SURVEILLANCE SOCIETY 1 MARTIN KOVANIČ Surveillance studies is a continuously growing discipline within the social sciences and it has been gaining prominence due to recent developments and scandals concerning surveillance. SuperVision is a book which introduces the various surveillance mechanisms applied in the world we live in and also attempts to reflect on theoretical debates within surveillance studies. However, as the authors claim, it is primarily “a crash course in the current practices of surveillance and a set of core questions that can guide a journey” (p. vii). Both authors are established surveillance studies scholars, who have published extensively on topics ranging from surveillance, security and power to surveillance in schools. SuperVision is an academic book, but it was written primarily for people outside surveillance studies. The main body is an overview of surveillance possibilities, and practices relating to the various technologies we use (such as the internet, mobile phones) and the institutions we spend our lives in (workplaces, schools). It gives the reader an overall idea of what it means to live in the surveillance society. It produces a large number of real life examples of how the information collected through these various channels can be used or misused. The book serves as a good introduction to surveillance studies, especially from the practical point of view. As the subtitle of the book suggests, we live in the surveillance society, characterized as a society in which “virtually all significant social, institutional, or business activities … in- volve the systematic monitoring, gathering and analysis of information in order to make deci- sions, minimize risk, sort populations, and exercise power” (p. 2). In the course of the book, the authors attempt to provide us with answers to questions such as why we should care about the fact we live in a surveillance society, how we should understand surveillance and whether surveillance really makes our lives easier and safer and what effect it has on our lives. In this review, I shall not provide all of the details and examples of various surveillance mechanisms and their practice, but I will focus on demonstrating how these questions were answered. 1 Gilliom, J., & Monahan, T. (2013). SuperVision: An Introduction to Surveillance Society. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. HUMAN AFFAIRS 24, 157–161, 2014 DOI: 10.2478/s13374-014-0215-z Unauthenticated Download Date | 3/3/20 11:51 PM